https://www.scmp.com/rss/9354/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Macau has taken a battering of late. Share prices of casino stocks listed in Hong Kong have halved in the past year as gaming revenues continue to plunge. News media are filled with tales of woe for the once-thriving special administrative region, as Beijing appears to be throttling the junkets, which have long driven the VIP sector, with waves of anti-corruption campaigns. Even mass-market revenues, which had been seen by investors as a cause for long-term optimism, are taking a hit. Against... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1692347/macaus-casino-crackdown-worthy-attempt-evolve-under-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1692347/macaus-casino-crackdown-worthy-attempt-evolve-under-one?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:08:13 +0000 Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah's decision last week to put the brakes on casino development was a surprisingly well-kept secret. Before he stood in front of the city's legislature to drop the biggest bombshell since liberalising the gaming market in 2002, not one of the gaming concessionaires was given a heads-up. Not that they were upset. Mr Ho has declared that the current six gaming concession-holders will have their positions enshrined in law, and no new ones will be awarded... https://www.scmp.com/article/635497/brakes-casinos-gives-macau-breather?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/635497/brakes-casinos-gives-macau-breather?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:00:00 +0000 The Venetian Macao has welcomed more than half a million visitors in its first week since opening - an average of more than 80,000 a day. That's unprecedented for an Asian theme park, let alone an 'integrated resort'. Hong Kong Disneyland, by contrast, is averaging 11,000 a day while the government frets about how to pay for its next phase. Consider that the Macau government put up not a penny for the Venetian's construction, yet takes 40 per cent of its gaming proceeds and 15 per cent of its... https://www.scmp.com/article/607131/wake-call-macau?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/607131/wake-call-macau?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:00:00 +0000 In the fuss surrounding the Grand Lisboa casino's first-phase opening at the weekend in Macau, observers have largely overlooked the extraordinary example that Stanley Ho Hung-sun is setting for his peers in Hong Kong. The story so far seems pretty straightforward. Mr Ho's Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau SA (STDM) ran an immensely profitable gaming monopoly in Macau for 40 years. The special administrative region's first chief executive, Edmund Ho Hau-wah, opened the market in... https://www.scmp.com/article/581841/deft-hand-card-king?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/581841/deft-hand-card-king?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Stanley Ho Hung-sun's gaming enterprise, Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, announced last week that it had lost market share to new rivals last year. Further, its overall revenue fell by 2.3 per cent on the year. The game, as they say, is clearly on. Indeed, over the next six to 18 months, it will be fascinating to see how the once-sleepy enclave's main players battle it out for the hearts, minds and wallets of the biggest gambling nation in the world. But anyone who thinks that this is a... https://www.scmp.com/article/547135/gambling-hotel-numbers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/547135/gambling-hotel-numbers?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 May 2006 16:00:00 +0000 Here's an idea for Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway if it does eventually offer the KCRC a diamond ring on bended knee: start promoting yourself as a Pearl River Delta transport operator. Just imagine the acronym: KCMTRCPRD. Seriously, this is a detail that may be getting overlooked in the brouhaha over whether the MTR Corp's minority shareholders should accept the government's plan for its merger with the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation. Together, these two would become a dominant player... https://www.scmp.com/article/545171/dreams-regional-rail-hub?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/545171/dreams-regional-rail-hub?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:00:00 +0000 April is not the time of year for a quiet cup of tea in most five-star hotel lobby lounges across the Pearl River Delta. This is the month when buyers from all over the world arrive in droves for the country's biggest annual trade shows. They will meet their suppliers mostly at convention and exhibition centres in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou, but the real negotiating often takes place at the hotels. If they end up signing multimillion-dollar orders for widgets or shoes before... https://www.scmp.com/article/543420/trading-places-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/543420/trading-places-future?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Apr 2006 16:00:00 +0000 I have always been a strong defender of the civil service in Hong Kong to those who berate it. Try the mainland, I usually say in response, and see what it's like there. But I'm starting to change my mind. It really hit me when a friend said recently that he thought Hong Kong's government spent most of its time talking about how not to do something. Since the handover, Hong Kong's civil servants have been practically shielding their trays from new work, thanks to a twin assault by... https://www.scmp.com/article/541304/look-north-lessons-governance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/541304/look-north-lessons-governance?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:00:00 +0000 Few neighbourhoods in China are as impressive as the Overseas Chinese Town (OCT) in Shenzhen. Barely 20 years old, it occupies the lion's share of the city's Nanshan district, between the central business area of Futian and the port of Shekou. It is best known as home to the mainland's most famous theme parks: Window of the World, Splendid China, and Happy Valley. At the end of this year, when the Western Crossing bridge opens, those theme parks will be as easy for Hongkongers to reach as... https://www.scmp.com/article/539361/satellite-making?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/539361/satellite-making?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Mar 2006 16:00:00 +0000 A tunnel from Zhongshan to Shenzhen: fancy that. No more need for a cross-delta bridge. No more need to anticipate jurisdictional conflicts between Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong. All that is needed is for the provincial government to say, 'let it be done', and a cheaper, faster alternative to the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge will appear beneath the muddy waters of the Pearl River Delta. At least, that is according to sources with 'an understanding of the situation', quoted in this newspaper... https://www.scmp.com/article/537334/just-another-link-chain?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/537334/just-another-link-chain?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Feb 2006 16:00:00 +0000 There is much to be said for both the weakness and strength of China's border controls. Surprising weakness can be found at the handful of points where the mainland physically connects with its two most subversive territories, aka the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Strength is most often found, again perhaps surprisingly, at the millions of points where the mainland figuratively connects with the wider world, in cyberspace. Neither is as accidental as it may appear. Hong... https://www.scmp.com/article/535434/stretching-cyberspace-boundaries?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/535434/stretching-cyberspace-boundaries?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Feb 2006 16:00:00 +0000 Doing business on the mainland can sometimes be hair-raising. But there was nothing to prepare me for the moment last Thursday when a few thousand police in riot gear ran out from the underground parking lot at Shenzhen's city hall, just as I was about to cross the street in front of them. Needless to say, I gestured 'after you' as they trundled past with a quiet, almost detached air to the pavement opposite, heading towards some peasants demonstrating against alleged illegal land seizures in... https://www.scmp.com/article/534089/unstoppable-locomotive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/534089/unstoppable-locomotive?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:00:00 +0000 It will take something extraordinary to beat last year's achievements in the greater Pearl River Delta. Guangdong's economy had been officially forecast to grow at 12.5 per cent, but who knows what the final figure will be when the State Statistical Bureau releases the full details of its calculations (2005 was the year the bureau took over responsibility for releasing provincial gross domestic product statistics). Hong Kong, whose economy is roughly the same size as the delta region's ... https://www.scmp.com/article/532246/boom-times-around-delta?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/532246/boom-times-around-delta?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jan 2006 16:00:00 +0000 It is true, as commentators have been commenting, that Hong Kong is the perfect place to host negotiations on free trade, such as the recent World Trade Organisation meetings. After all, just look at what trade has done for Hong Kong: turned it from a barren rock into one of the world's most vibrant cities. It could be argued, however, that an even better example exists of both the benefits and challenges brought to a people by their decision to engage in free trade. It is right next... https://www.scmp.com/article/530683/boom-story-no-other?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/530683/boom-story-no-other?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Dec 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Between 5pm and 6pm, it is hard to believe that Lowu is a border crossing. The lines at immigration are packed by schoolchildren going home to Shenzhen, and the place has a carnival atmosphere. People shout rendezvous information across the desks to each other before they traipse across the bridge spanning the Shenzhen River. Children jostle for a place, and minders struggle to keep them under control. Immigration officers try to take seriously the formalities of swiping ID cards. It's all... https://www.scmp.com/article/529050/boundaries-bigger-picture?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/529050/boundaries-bigger-picture?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:00:00 +0000 I am sitting in Shekou , watching the International Food Fair starting at the Seaworld Plaza. The music is blaring. Announcers are screeching. The crowds are yapping at the top of their lungs. I am thinking: just another regular outdoor promotional event in China. But then I start to look more closely at the people walking by, and realise this place is different. Shekou port, on the western side of Shenzhen, was the first place on the mainland to open up following Deng Xiaoping's 1979... https://www.scmp.com/article/526993/embracing-alternative-lifestyle?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/526993/embracing-alternative-lifestyle?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The golf course aside, Shenzhen is home to a variety of interesting cultural features to visit and experience, proof that this thriving city is about far more than just hustle and bustle 1 Shop at Lowu Commercial City You can't miss it; it's the big building looming over the plaza just outside the border terminal. A veritable hive of activity, it is home to hundreds of tiny shops run by tailors, jewellers, herbal pharmacists, foot doctors, dentists, star-gazing telescope salesmen, and, yes,... https://www.scmp.com/article/526314/18-links-leisure?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/526314/18-links-leisure?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Zhang Lianwei left school with a spear, not a club, in his hand. China's greatest golfer was a star javelin-thrower, the best in Zhuhai, and he had his sights set on becoming one of the nation's top athletes. But when he walked into Zhuhai Golf Club for the first time at the age of 20, he knew his life was about to change. 'It was just so beautiful,' he says, his face lighting up with childlike joy at the memory. 'I had never seen anything like it: the trees, the bunkers, the greens ... it was... https://www.scmp.com/article/526321/zhang-model-tiny-tiger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/526321/zhang-model-tiny-tiger?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:00:00 +0000 'Our location in the heart of the city is an advantage, but it is also the course that gets people coming back' Shenzhen Golf Club has - like Shenzhen itself - Deng Xiaoping to thank for its existence. When the late former paramount leader flung open the country's doors in 1979, in marched foreign businessmen who desperately needed to indulge their second favourite pastime while they built factories in the newly created special economic zone. At the time, the Futian district was not the... https://www.scmp.com/article/526324/paving-way-fairway-heaven?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/526324/paving-way-fairway-heaven?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:00:00 +0000 With Hong Kong's bars and restaurants heaving, its headhunters unable to pull themselves away from Blackberries long enough to order a Pinot Noir, and with office rents in Central reaching laughable levels, it is hard these days to get many people thinking about the Pearl River Delta, let alone the greater delta region. This is the centre of the universe. Backyards? Who needs them? Some fundamental changes, however, are under way in Guangdong and the eight other provinces that comprise the... https://www.scmp.com/article/525004/hinterland-holding-reins?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/525004/hinterland-holding-reins?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Adults dressed in suits resembling a mouse, a duck or a goofy-looking dog are all well and good, but my young daughter prefers the real thing. Or so she declared after a trip to the White Tiger Safari and Night Zoo in Panyu, near the mouth of the Pearl River in Guangdong. While seven-year-olds tend to live in the present, this one's declaration ought to be taken seriously. She has been to the Tokyo and Los Angeles Disneylands, and decided she would rather enjoy her eighth birthday party with ... https://www.scmp.com/article/523645/tigers-tale?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/523645/tigers-tale?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Nov 2005 16:00:00 +0000 I am sitting on a long-distance bus, setting out from the home town of China's republican revolutionary leader to the city that is as revolutionary as is humanly possible in today's people's republic. The scenery whizzing by is not what would normally be associated with the Pearl River Delta: bright yellow rice paddies and green palm tree plantations interspersed with quaint old farmhouses and, every now and then, a factory. Zhongshan , the birthplace of Sun Yat-sen, does not easily hold up in... https://www.scmp.com/article/522920/theres-no-need-shout?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/522920/theres-no-need-shout?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000 You could say that Victor Kho's first business lessons came at the age of 10. Unlike many boys his age who might have opened a lemonade stand, he thought a Red Guard troupe would be a splendid idea. He was living in Guangzhou, after all, caught in the early rumblings of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, and nothing could have grabbed hold of a young boy's ambition like the idea of putting on a red armband and running around telling grown-ups what Mao Zedong's thought was all about. So the... https://www.scmp.com/article/521850/ex-red-guard-anti-piracy-capitalist-road?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/521850/ex-red-guard-anti-piracy-capitalist-road?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Much has been written about Hong Kong's economic advantages over the mainland. Treatises usually start by praising the rule of law, and go on to mention great infrastructure and a strong financial-services sector. They almost never discuss what, in this day and age, is Hong Kong's No 1 asset: the diversity of the city's immigrants. It would be true to say that Beijing and Shanghai - not to mention the great melting pot of Shenzhen - are mainland cities with a broad ethnic make-up. Wander around... https://www.scmp.com/article/520941/variety-spice-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/520941/variety-spice-life?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Americans are fighting a war in China, a more unwinnable war than the one they are fighting in Iraq. So far, the casualties are not high enough to have mothers screaming for their sons' safety. But the worry beads are being stroked hard enough at the White House for President George W. Bush to have recently appointed a 'piracy tsar', and sent him to China to see what can be done about the violations of US companies' intellectual property rights. Chris Israel's job is to co-ordinate the US... https://www.scmp.com/article/518929/war-without-end?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/518929/war-without-end?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000 WILLIAM LIN HAS seen it all at the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou. He has been working there for the 20 years it has existed, starting in the 'rank-and-file' and working up to the top as general manager. But the best is yet to come. 'We will revamp ourselves completely,' he said, describing the enormous hotel's plans for the future. 'We must, to face the coming competition of the next three to five years.' The competition is at least five international-brand luxury chains: The Ritz-Carlton, Grand... https://www.scmp.com/article/517436/garden-hotel-keeps-times?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/517436/garden-hotel-keeps-times?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 President Hu Jintao may still be an enigma, but his administration is clearly coming into its own. You don't need to be a palace-watcher to realise this; just try doing business in the capital, and judge the quality of the people you will meet. In the two years since the handover of power to the so-called 'fourth generation', it has been improving steadily. It was only on a recent trip to Beijing, however, that it struck me how quickly young, overseas-educated people are being pushed up the... https://www.scmp.com/article/516894/rise-new-generation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/516894/rise-new-generation?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Driving through Shenzhen , passing countless factories, it's not hard to believe that as many as 110,000 are unlicensed. Some are bigger than aircraft hangars. Many are just a single floor in a decrepit building. However, they almost all share one common trait: they should be flying a black flag with a white skull and crossbones. According to provincial government estimates, intellectual piracy accounts for at least 80 per cent of the value coming out of unlicensed factories in Shenzhen.... https://www.scmp.com/article/516425/pirates-prd?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/516425/pirates-prd?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Could intellectual property rights be the next flashpoint of Sino-US relations? It certainly seems to be riding higher on the US agenda with the visit to China this week of its new 'piracy tsar', Chris Israel. His mission is clear. As Mr Israel told a forum in Shenzhen on Monday: 'The ability of the United States economy to prosper is increasingly dependant on the protection of its companies' intellectual property around the world.' Mr Israel claims that US companies are losing the... https://www.scmp.com/article/516424/piracy-digging-hole-us-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/516424/piracy-digging-hole-us-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The reform of the mainland's banking system proceeds at a cracking pace. The China Securities Regulatory Commission is instructing state-run banks - as if there really were another kind - to lend to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Yes, it is easy to see now why the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lee Ka-shing and the Singaporean government are buying into the Bank of China. Just imagine the gold mine that will be opened by this latest directive from the top: China's massive, lumbering old... https://www.scmp.com/article/515041/small-and-medium-sized-dilemma?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/515041/small-and-medium-sized-dilemma?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The time to drive along Gordon Wu Ying-sheung's expressway from Guangzhou to Shenzhen is at dusk. That is when the car's windows form a wraparound projection screen of scenes from a Chinese version of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The most fantastical part of the trip takes place in the commercially demilitarised zone between the two cities, also known as Dongguan. Here, in the mainland's richest prefecture, where tax and customs officials from Guangzhou and Shenzhen tread delicately,... https://www.scmp.com/article/513219/signposts-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/513219/signposts-future?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 It could be said that Yang Guifei, one of the best-known imperial concubines in Chinese history, started a craze more than a millennium ago when she begged her lover to get some lychees from 'down south'. Emperor Xuanzong (685-762) sent a group of his best men on horseback from what was then the capital of the Tang dynasty, Xi'an. It took them three days, but they returned triumphant with baskets of the precious fruit from what was then supposedly the southernmost province of Guangdong. Sadly,... https://www.scmp.com/article/512091/rich-pickings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/512091/rich-pickings?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The Shenzhen Shangri-La's top-floor panoramic restaurant is one of the best spots in China for a sundowner. Champagne aside, it offers sweeping views of the contrast between the two sides of the Lowu border crossing to Hong Kong. Along the northern bank of the Shenzhen River, it is as if the buildings themselves are lined up, waiting their turn to squeeze across the bridge between China's two richest cities. On the Hong Kong side, it is mostly green, as if the inhabitants have long since been... https://www.scmp.com/article/511429/quality-counts-not-quantity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/511429/quality-counts-not-quantity?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Resort Intime sanya Dadonghai Bay, Sanya Tel: (86) 898 8821 0888 welcome@resortintime.com www.resortintime.com In Dadonghai, there is only one place to stay at the top end of the market - the Resort Intime. The five-star resort is a standout in the area, with great views of the sea, a well-designed swimming pool, and gardens with palm trees and lotus ponds designed for private walks (perfect for a stroll before dinner). The facilities are well-appointed, too. Almost all of the 420 rooms... https://www.scmp.com/article/510807/dadonghai-bay?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/510807/dadonghai-bay?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 International Asia Pacific Convention Centre HNA Sanya Resort Haipo Tourism Zone, Sanya Tel (86) 532 8833 2666 Holiday Inn Sanya Bay Resort Haipo Tourism Zone, Sanya Tel (86) 898 88339988 hotel@hi-sanyabay.com www.holiday-inn.com There are 7km of beach in Sanya Bay, which runs north from the city centre, and just about every metre of it has a hotel or condominium. We would recommend only two, however: the HNA Sanya Resort (run by the same company that owns Hainan's airports and its... https://www.scmp.com/article/510806/sanya-bay?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/510806/sanya-bay?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Golfers are spoilt for choice on Hainan. The courses in Sanya and Boao offer a particularly rewarding challenge IF HAINAN REALLY is the Hawaii of the East for golf, these days the island has more muscle than Maui. Of course, those who are sensitive about the environmental impact of the super-sized courses that have sprung up in recent years might want to stick to the beaches. But for golfers, the courses in Sanya and Boao, along with others scattered around the island, are a grand and rare... https://www.scmp.com/article/510803/island-golfing-eden?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/510803/island-golfing-eden?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 With the opening of more top quality hotels, Yalong is set to become a luxury destination ON THE FACE OF it, Yalong Bay rivals Bali's Nusa Dua and Phuket's Bang Tao beaches. It is little wonder that the Miss World pageant has been held here three consecutive years, as it is a perfect setting for a beauty contest. The sand is pure, the water is clear and the hillsides are unblemished. Until a year ago, however, the Sheraton was the only international super-luxury hotel there. The addition of... https://www.scmp.com/article/510805/bayside-beauty?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/510805/bayside-beauty?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 How China can be so full of promise and so hopeless at the same time is a thought that is hard to escape when travelling through the country. The largely unspoiled beauty of Xinjiang , for instance, contrasts starkly with Shaanxi , a coal-mining province that could have been the setting for Mordor in Lord of the Rings. Then there is the energy of Shenzhen, a city of 10 million immigrants that has grown out of rice paddies in 25 years, to compare with rural villages in Guangxi that have been... https://www.scmp.com/article/509703/spare-thought-central-bankers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/509703/spare-thought-central-bankers?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:00:00 +0000 China's leaders watching the Group of Eight meeting in Scotland last week could have been forgiven a flush of pride. Unlike most of Africa, they no longer need their begging bowls to be filled by the planet's rich countries, thanks to economic reforms of the past 25 years. Mothers the world over have stopped admonishing children finish their dinner with: 'Don't you know there are millions of starving children in China?' Yet, if Politburo members were to direct their gaze to the southern tip... https://www.scmp.com/article/507932/african-model-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/507932/african-model-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Jul 2005 16:00:00 +0000 John Woo could not do a better job of directing Hong Kong's customs police at the border crossings. The way they stand there, nonchalantly alert - chatting among themselves while giving arrivals a glance from one eye - is worthy of a special category at the Oscars. It is understated power personified, a frontline reminder to visitors that the rule of law prevails here in discreet surety. Their mainland counterparts must have watched enough of the Hong Kong director's movies by now to be able to... https://www.scmp.com/article/506201/praise-hong-kongs-paranoia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/506201/praise-hong-kongs-paranoia?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Beijing is a place for big decisions, so it is best to get it right at the start by choosing a good hotel For most international business travellers, the first stop in China is obvious. Beijing is where all major foreign investment decisions are made, and government-relations management begins there. Options for luxury accommodation in the capital spring less easily to mind, however. The first three factors to consider are location, location and location. Thanks to the economic boom of the... https://www.scmp.com/article/506127/taking-capital?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/506127/taking-capital?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 For luxury hotels, times have never been better in Shanghai - and that makes a reservation essential Shanghai is a boomtown, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the lobbies of its luxury hotels. Mind you, without an advance booking, the lobby might be as far as you will get. Time was, you could book a room in your favourite hotel at almost a moment's notice. Not anymore. Occupancy rates are in the high 90-per-cent range, and if there is a big convention underway, it is likely that you... https://www.scmp.com/article/506128/where-action?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/506128/where-action?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 It will be interesting to see how long the annals of history show Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's honeymoon to have lasted. That is, when was he no longer a candidate, no longer a politician, no longer a civil servant; but finally, the big cheese. They say that second marriages are a triumph of hope over experience. That looks true for Hong Kong's second attempt to walk down the aisle with a locally chosen head of government. But second marriages also inevitably require much stronger... https://www.scmp.com/article/505806/how-spend-your-honeymoon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/505806/how-spend-your-honeymoon?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Spy stories make for compelling reading and, as John le Carre fans know, those that end up in the media usually have more to them than meets the eye. This appears to be so in Australia, where three former Chinese officials, one after another, have tried to claim political asylum. Most Australians are understandably shocked that China might have 1,000 spies in their country. Many are surely rethinking the value of their mineral exports to the mainland. What they should be more worried about,... https://www.scmp.com/article/504372/masters-spycraft?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/504372/masters-spycraft?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 I am no Jake van der Kamp, but everything I see and hear on the road in China these days suggests we are living in a period of irrational exuberance. Take the most basic industry: power. Given chronic shortages, manufacturers of small generators for factories should be laughing. Yet I spoke to one who fretted about booming sales, because he knew that most customers were just hoarding their equipment to create a secondary market into which they could sell at vastly inflated prices. Further up... https://www.scmp.com/article/502633/what-comes-great-crash?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/502633/what-comes-great-crash?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 May 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The rear of the Forbidden City is my favourite spot in Beijing. The road leading to it winds along quietly until the walls of the former palace roll into view. There is none of the tourist cattle market at the front, no arrogant portrait of the Great Helmsman, Mao Zedong . There is the gate, the canal, the weeping willows and the road. Cars move at a respectful pace through here. It is the gentler, humbler side of the imperial capital. It might be a good place to find refuge this week during... https://www.scmp.com/article/500911/doing-global-business-giant-village?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/500911/doing-global-business-giant-village?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 May 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Kuomintang chairman Lien Chan's mainland trip may have had enormous symbolism for international observers, but for most Taiwanese, James Soong Chu-yu's trip over the next eight days will be a far more poignant affair. This is the same man who put Chen Shui-bian in jail as a dissident; now he is carrying the Taiwanese president's message to President Hu Jintao . Whatever he comes back with might alter cross-strait relations, but it will certainly reconfigure the domestic political landscape. Mr... https://www.scmp.com/article/499480/get-ready-some-real-diplomacy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/499480/get-ready-some-real-diplomacy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 May 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Could there be something between the timing of the anti-Japanese protests and the mainland visits by Taiwanese opposition leaders? It is probably too early to say, but there are many reasons to believe that profound shifts are under way in Sino-Japanese and cross-strait relations which are inextricably linked. It is hard not to believe that motives beyond the most obvious exist for the latest outbreak of anti-Japanese protests on the mainland. Trying to prevent Japan's admission to the UN... https://www.scmp.com/article/499111/attacking-japan-win-over-taiwan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/499111/attacking-japan-win-over-taiwan?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 May 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Cross-strait politics has never been a simple story, yet most Hong Kong commentators are putting a shameful lack of effort into understanding the forces at play in Lien Chan's mainland trip. Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian is being painted as a sore, desperate loser, the leaders of the Kuomintang and Communist Party as pragmatic, thoughtful rivals, and supporters of the one-China principle as victors. Please. There is no doubt that Mr Chen has been playing catch-up to Mr Lien, the outgoing... https://www.scmp.com/article/498626/dont-count-out-chen-yet?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/498626/dont-count-out-chen-yet?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Apr 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The bubble in Shanghai's property market is destined to pop; the question is how soon and what the ripple effects will be. As discussed in this column two weeks ago, it is difficult to know how many local residents have invested in the Shanghai market, or are about to. There is no data on home ownership rates as a percentage of the population, and nothing on the affordability ratio - how much of people's average monthly income goes towards a mortgage. It is a given, however, that the rest of... https://www.scmp.com/article/497179/home-property-bubble?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/497179/home-property-bubble?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Apr 2005 16:00:00 +0000